Strange, very strange...
Why did those white lines show up, that were not there when the picture was taken? Scary stuff!
and why did their faces change???
The old cupboard on the front porch is perfect for holding a few scary items on Halloween. But seriously, I don't know what caused those white lines.
My grandma's old home place has nothing to do with Halloween, but I was going through some pictures, saw it and thought, this would now be a scary place to be on Halloween night, and what a shame. Why, mama was born and raised here...
This home was once warm and cozy, and lived in. We visited here when I was a child and I remember mama and daddy leaving me with grandma for a few hours late one evening. I was surely very young. The living room was lit with an oil lamp and grandma spread a quilt out on the floor for me to play on.
One of my all time favorite Halloween nights, well, in my adult life anyway, was back when Poppy and I were dating...and I've posted this before...
we went to a Halloween party at the Holiday Inn, in Southern Pines. We were not aware that a fifty dollar prize would be given for best costume. We were simply in love...and on the dance floor most of the night. At closing time, the announcer asked, will the cowboy and his Indian maiden come up front. We won the prize, without even trying.
When the party ended and we got to the car, we realized that we had locked the keys inside the car. Count Dracula and his wife gave us a ride home. My apartment was only three miles from the hotel.
I gave up on trying to decorate this table, but the crow on the witch's hat lets out a series of caws when we walk out the front door.
Wish we could look forward to crowds of children knocking on the door for treats, but we live too far back in the woods for that. Why, it would scare me to death if a ghost or goblin came rapping at the door, way out here.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "Tis some visitor", I muttered... The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe I like this poem!
Mama simply hated Halloween night and was scared to death of folks dressed up. I think she may have enjoyed the children on Halloween after she moved in with Shelby and Jimmy...and felt safe.
Have a scary one!!
Love,
Henny
At last! Clean, dust free jars!
Did you ever wonder what thirty years of dust looks like?
Well, maybe it hasn't been quite thirty years, but I can't remember the last time these jar (in the back) were washed. I should be ashamed of myself for showing you this.
Poppy says the dust and cob webs make the place look older. It looks older alright...like the owners have died and gone on!
This collection of canning jars and old milk bottles sits way up high on a shelf in the kitchen. It's a job, bringing in the tall ladder and climbing up and down, over and over...
but I did, and got it done, bringing down four at a time and washing them in hot soapy water.
Sparkling clean! What a good feeling it was when that last jar was dried and put back on that shelf.
One old milk bottle still had the cardboard cap. "Tuberculin Tested". Maybe I should be tested, after breathing in all that dust!
I'm a counter you know, and there were 63 bottles and jars, that row is four deep!
I was going to show you my scary Halloween decorations...such as it is, but no, I'll wait until Tuesday!
Thank you, if you're still here. Who wants to look at dust and dirt. :)
Love,
Henny
Dear friends,
Oh, I really did want to reply to each one of your comments on my last post...and here I've been away from home all day again. Replies now might be too late...but I sure enjoyed each one. Thank you!
You know, there is a heat lamp in the baby guinea's pen to keep them warm. So, just before dark, when I close the chicken house door, I look in on the babies too. What a surprise I got last night...
They were not snuggled in the hay under the lamp, but had climbed the ladder up to the roost.
had to go to the other side of the pen to get the two babies facing this way.
Not much of a post, and the shortest one ever. Mostly wanted to say how much I enjoyed your comments.
Love,
Henny
All of a sudden, Penny's teeny tiny baby bun bun has become a regular little bunny rabbit...
finding it's way out of the nest to nibble on kale...
and wash it's tiny face, and hop down those steep cinder block steps to play on the ground.
When did all this happen? I had no idea just how fast baby bunnies grow.
this is an awful picture, but I wanted you to see this sweet little mouth and nose. She (or he) has long flat nose. Poppy says she favors a mouse. What in the world can we name her?
Heaven knows I do not need four bunnies, but how can I part with this one? Penny's first. She has lost two.
Here we've been all summer with no babies to raise. Now, going into winter, we have babies...
a gift from our nice neighbors Robert and Kristine. They had thirty three baby guineas hatch recently. Thirty three!! Now eight of them are ours. Aren't they cute?
I found an old piece of tin to add to the small lot behind the chicken house. This will be a windbreak and give the babies a warm corner to huddle in, under the heat lamp.
Oh my, I had rather be outside building cozy little homes for animals, and playhouses, than eat when I am hungry. Poppy says, "do you think that you will ever grow up"? Well no! Why should I?
Happened to look out the kitchen window and thought...
what is that on top of the goat barn? Well, it was Smokey, sound asleep.
I told him to come on inside, the bed is much softer.
Just wanted to mention this same old heavy comforter you see in all the pictures. No matter how pretty the bed is made, I keep this comforter spread out for the animals. Three cats and two dogs leave a lot of hair. :) But, I do get tired of the look.
Hope to be back soon.
Love,
Henny
I came home from the Fair in one piece!!
Deb, I laughed every time I thought about you telling me to come home from the Fair in one piece...Just picturing Shelby and me ripping and tearing and getting on all those rides at the Fair, and coming home all broken up. (Deb, at justcats-deb.blogspot.com left me a comment saying to come home in one piece)
As bad as I hate to admit it, we didn't ride the carousel! Oh, we hummed and hawed, we studied and discussed it, and watched group after group fill up the hobby horses and gallop round past us while I stood wondering if I would be able to put one foot in the stirrup, pull myself up, and throw my leg over the horse...and could I dismount without ending up on the floor under the horse? So, maybe next year.
The carousel picture was from the Fair in 2015 and that's Shelby in front. Can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the rides this year.
But, this picture...
would you just look at that playhouse! Well, it's not a playhouse, but the set-up of fence panels reminds me of my playhouse. Oh my gosh! Could I do that here??
We looked at the sweet animals...
and the funny ones...
and one I wanted to take home...
There were lots of new sections added this year...
Pretty, but many of the old things were gone.
one of our favorite places to sit.
This is the entrance to the Fair.
Guess that's about it. Sure sorry there is no picture of me on a hobby horse.
Thank you for visiting.
Love,
Henny
P.S. Forgot to mention how much fun we had. A day at the State Fair with Shelby is always fun. We walked and talked and laughed. We ate fried dough and funnel cake and NC State Butter Almond ice cream. We sampled hush puppies and chips, and peanuts. We sat and watched people. I am already looking forward to the Fair next year.
Our neighbor Ann pulled into the driveway yesterday and tooted the horn. No, she was not carrying a shoe box with a baby bunny this time, she had a flower cutting...
prettiest thing I've ever seen! This picture does not do it justice. Heavy clusters of dark red berries, and white blooms, both!! "I don't remember where I bought it or what it's called", she said.
So, I've been on line looking and it looks like, "Cardinal Candy Viburnum". I've simply got to have one. Wonder if it is the wrong time of year to root a cutting??
Anyhow, I woke up this morning with puffy eyes...
from working inside the chicken house. What a mess. Cobwebs strung from one side to the other, full of feathers and dust. I went in with the broom and rake and fresh straw.
The guineas watched from the grapevine posts, but chickens...
they are curious and nosy, and in the middle of everything. They scattered the clean hay as soon as it hit the floor.
Did you notice little Weetie standing guard just outside the fence? She will not leave my side, and I honestly think she would tackle a bear, trying to protect me.
Oh, and speaking of chickens...I had the big idea of turning them out. Out to eat grass and roam around the pond, and down the dirt path. But friends, these 20 chickens, within 30 minutes, tore up a year's worth of my hard work. They wandered nowhere! but scratched all the mulch and pine straw from under and around every shrub and flower bed in the yard. They left no stone unturned! Poppy said, "told you so". "I knew you were making a mistake".
I was thinking, with the leaves falling and the grass dying from the dry weather, what harm could the hens do. Well, here they were just getting started.
Noticed none of the chickens ate this stinging worm from off the chicken house door...
a strange looking creature. Googled it and found out, this is a Banded Tussock moth, Halysidota tessellaris.
Oh, have I mentioned that the NC State Fair opened last Thursday? Shelby and I are planning to be there when the gates open on Tuesday morning!!
We so look forward to this day. It's been a whole year! You may remember how much I wanted to ride the hobby horses last year, but didn't. Well this year, Shelby and I are seriously going to ride...first thing, or right after we eat our first ear of corn dipped in butter. There will be pictures, if I can get up on one of the horses...and back down, without breaking something.
Love,
Henny
Dear friends,
I haven't written a post fit to read in a while now. Oh, there's plenty of stuff going on, in fact, the days simply fly, but I sit down at the computer and draw a blank.
If mama was still here, her advice to me would be, "oh, just write anything. What difference does it make"? She was sweet, that's for sure.
Anyhow, Eli, Weetie, and I just went for a walk, without Poppy. He has to work until 5:00 today.
we walked to the garden...
not much left there but a few flowers and some bugs. A Katydid. Don't you wonder how the Katydid got it's name?
and a bee
the spider on this zinnia hid behind a petal
this one looks like it was torn from a child's coloring book
the okra is still blooming though most the leaves are gone from the stems
and inside, a big black ant
Just googled, "how did the katydid get it's name" and learned it is because of how it's song sounds...like "katy did, katy didn't".
I've heard those sounds at night all my life and did not know it was the song of the Katydid. You can hear it on youtube katydid sounds.
Well, it's time to light things up in the sewing room. If I hurry, I can sew for an hour anyway.
Thank you for putting up with me.
Love
Henny
Look very closly, as I did, down into this soft little bunny's nest...
and see the sweetest sleeping baby. There is only one baby bun bun, but it looks healthy. I love the tiny pink feet and wrinkled little neck. Yes, Penny finally has a baby.
Still no sign of "Wilder", the rabbit. There are lots of woods and lots of wild rabbits around, so maybe he has simply been too busy to stop by.
Aprons...again! I've been sewing and have a few to add to the little shop...
remember my try at making a ruffled apron? Turns out, it is my all time favorite.
It is just sort of guess work on my part, but I like how it looks and want to try another one.
and this...
flower print apron has been cut out and in my stack of stuff to finish for some time now.
glad to have it finished.
and this purple one...
This is one of those wrap-around aprons...
full coverage. Anyhow, that's it for the aprons.
There is a craft sale at a little church near here in November and I've been asked to be a vendor.
We are finally getting some rain, but my goodness!! The heat and humidity has returned big time. It feels like the middle of July!
I will leave you with this...
well, he asked for a cone of ice cream! :) Couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face.
Thank you for visiting.
Love,
Henny
